Monthly Archives: December 2014

Fourteen years ago, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) proposed bringing four BART stations to the San Jose area, including one to the Five Wounds Community, a neighborhood mostly of Portuguese immigrants that has few public transportation options. Since then, “Little Portugal,” as it is called, has spent over a decade preparing for the station by constructing an urban village plan residents are banking on to revitalize the area with hundreds of new housing units and thousands of new jobs.

But on Oct. 6, the Five Wounds Community received devastating news after a transportation blogger spotted a VTA meeting agenda online proposing removing the station from a federal funding application that was to cover the bulk of the construction costs.

Mary and I, along with other local neighborhood leaders were interviewed for the Stanford University newspaper. Surprisingly, it turned into a video report that has been posted at the university site.